linux and windows lookup host processes

I am curious, is there a difference between how Windows looks up hosts and linux does because this is the second time that a linux computer got a different result from visiting a website than a windows computer.

Story:
I was setting up a VERIO DNS for my employer and the DNS provided a temporary page holder while the website was being designed, after I set up the webserver and he pointed the PIX to the webserver etc we set up the DNS so it would point to the PIX (switch/router). And when we got on our Linux box it would load fine, but when we got on the windows box it would load the page holder. It was the strangest thing, only linux machines, didn't matter what browser, could load or even see the website, when we pinged it the IP address was different between the machines. We consulted the DNS books and it turned out to be a random priority setting, we then disabled and still had the problem but instead the pages would switch every hour or so.

He eventually fixed it by telling Verio, over the phone to remove the page and fix it themselves or he would ... nm

anyway, I have my site running but my friend who uses a linux box can't load the page, at first i thought itwas something wrong with her provider because i had countless errors from her provider trying to access my box. But then I tried it on my own linux box and it didn't work, it couldn't even detect itself!!!

But my windows boxes could and so could the rest of my friends' boxes...